Softball: A Fiat (Pertinent Lessons from our Professional Cousins)
Dear People,
In an explosive anti-climactic climax that will have aerobic historians grumbling for millennia, Pace’s team beat back my own, 22-20. Pardon me, 22-20.* In fact, let’s not kid ourselves; My team beat Pace’s 23-22, but in fairness, I need to elaborate.
After a grueling two hours of see-sawing competitive excellence, my side entered the bottom of the 9th trailing 22-18, and frankly, feeling brittle, drained and frightened. But soon enough, with one out, one across and ducks on the pond (or wolves in the briar, or goats by the chapel or whatever the hell that expression is), Chris Fure blasted a staggering, long fly to the lush bushy tundra of deep center right. I believe every person in that park thought they were witnessing the game’s transcendent dénouement, but in a clear sign of deistic intervention, Rachel made the greatest over-the-shoulder catch in the history of our community, thereby turning the Furinator’s presumed game-winning homer into another bittersweet slice of total whoop-ass denied. Pity.
In any case, a minute later, with two out, two on, and the game-winning run still at the plate, Alan Miller battled Frank on the mound, and in all candor, the tension was so high that I nearly wet my knickers. Then, after an enervating multi-toss faceoff, Frankenstein tossed a brazen 2-2 “low ball” that just caught the front edge of the plate as the Millinintor sat there catatonic. Instantly thereafter, Allan Brill—citizen, father and beloved good-faith catcher/ump—called out the third strike, ending the game right then and there!
To be sure, it was both a stunning and profoundly awkward moment, for it’s quite clear that every person on that field saw what I saw, which was an utterly arcless pitch with such a pitiful trajectory that it indisputably conformed more to the rules of the California Bowling Association than any actual softball league. Still, a call is a call, the law is the law, and we simply do not second-guess our beloved catcher/umps; Again, my team lost, 22-20.
Yeah, right. I think our entire crestfallen nation just witnessed what happened last week when the great Armando Galarraga was robbed of a perfect game by umpire Jim Joyce, who at least admitted his error immediately after seeing the replay (If you live in a cave and didn’t catch it, see the most compelling summary here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixKidAhVtW4&feature=related ). Of course the real travesty was when Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig refused to reverse the blown call, despite the fact that the perfection of that game is now known with raw epistemological certainty from Detroit to Dakar! The fact is that I just go bitchcakes when I think how that uptight little tyrant refuses to budge, and indeed, I now rank Selig as ghastly as Glen Beck, Michelle Malkin and Antonin Scalia. Yep, that ghastly.
Needless to say, I will not Seligize myself (as much as I like that verb), for while the consequences of a reversal in our own game are somewhat more “theoretical,” I think we can all agree that had Frank’s gutter ball been properly ruled illegal, Alan Miller would’ve undoubtedly hit a game-winning three-run homer on the very next pitch. Indeed, it’s always useful to view calamitous events in proper context, and now that we have, I can unabashedly declare that Frank’s pitch was illicit, Allan Brill is legally blind and my team beat Pace’s, 23-22. To be sure, it’s bracing to be decisive, and therefore there will be a game at Codorncies this Sunday at 11, IF I get enough commits by this Friday morning. . .Raymond
6/11/10
Softball: The Healing Arts
Dear People,
There will be a game at Codornices this Sunday at 11, and as of now there are still two slots left.
Please bring $4 for the field, which for this week only includes a complimentary post-game session of blended Jungian psychotherapy, nitrous oxide sedation and a handcrafted doobie of genuine organic weed. . .Raymond 845-7552